How to Buy, Sell & Trade VHS Tapes

The Video Home System (VHS) was first introduced by JCV in 1976 to compete with Sony's similar cassette video format player, Betamax (See Resources). Much of the success VHS cassettes received was due to the superior recording availability. From the 1980s to the late 1990s, VHS revolutionized home video entertainment with large-scale production and manufacturing of VHS players and videos. The VHS has now become close to obsolete since the arrival of the DVD. However, there are still many consumers who trade and buy VHS videos.

Make copies of the VHS that you want to trade or sell. You can make a copy onto a blank VHS tape or convert the VHS to a blank DVD using VHS/DVD combo system (See Resources). It will be helpful to back up your VHS or convert them to DVD.

Determine how much your VHS tape that you want to sell is worth by going to auction websites like eBay or movie forums. It's important to make sure you don't sell a rare video for less than it's worth.

Visit local video stores and ask if they sell or buy VHS tapes. If the video store appears to only sell or rent DVDs, it could still be possible that the store has several VHS tapes hiding that they're willing to sell for a low price. Your best bet for finding VHS tapes is a locally-owned video store and not a chain.

Sell your VHS tapes on any auction website like eBay or a classified site like Craigslist. Even Amazon still has a place for users to sell VHS tapes. Since the demand for VHS is low, it can be difficult to sell VHS videos online if they're not rare in some way. It may be just a profitable to sell the VHS at a yard or garage sale, or to sell the videos to an antique shop that will pay you for them.

Trade, sell and buy on the VHS Movie Trader website (See Resources). You must first create an account and then you'll be able to post any videos you want to sell of trade. For example, you can mark your post as "For Trade Only" if you only wish to trade. You can also finding posting for VHS tapes locally by clicking on your state at the bottom of the screen.